My maternal grandfather , John Franklin Webb was born in 1847 and lived until 1920. My mother was born in 1906 when he was 59 years old. My mother lived to be 94.

That's almost unbelievable, but a fact is a fact. In fact, I'll give you a true story now from my own family, if you'll bear with me.

My grandma was born in London, England, in 1890.

In 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, the whole of the nation had a street party. It was also her 7th birthday.

During the street party, hearing about he birthday, a very old neighbour came up to her father, and asked if he could give her a hug in celebration of the event, as she looked so pretty. He was very aged, and badly scarred, but was known to be a good man, so her dad agreed.

He gave her the hug, and the story that went with it.

It's a special hug, he explained, that you can pass down to your children some day. I was a young drummer boy, only twelve years old, at the Battle of Waterloo back in 1815, and don't remember much about it as I was badly wounded sometime later in the day. I was found lying by the trail of a ammunition cart, and kept warm all night by a soldier who hugged me to keep me warm, and in the early morning carried me to the surgeons' camp to get me fixed up as best they could.

So I'm passing this hug to you, to give to your daughter when SHE is seven years old, and she can pass it on in turn. The soldier eventually went back to England, and took me with him, and why not, after all, he WAS my father.

Back to the present day - and when I was seven - on my birthday, my grandma gave the Waterloo hug to me, and I passed it on to MY daughter, who, in turn, passed it on to HER daughter.

Unlike a real relationship, this is an intangible thing - a memory - but nevertheless, it's a connection that I've cherished all my life.

Although I'm not a Christian, let's just remind ourselves that the number of people standing between us and the cross at Calvary is probably less than the number of people on your morning bus.

With that, I'll leave you for the rest of the day.

G*d bless us all.

tac

great story Tac!

I’m just fascinated by stories like this. My own family runs 27-33 years between kids going back about 4 generations and then the records get thin. I have a friend who was a grandmother at 38 so some folks just g t started earlier than others.

Great story, Tac! Thank you for sharing.

I have read about other instances from that time period where really old men had children with women 40-50 years younger. Many Civil War vets had agreements with young woman that she would basically be his live-in nurse and he would impregnate her so that she could collect his veterans pension when he died.

Very cool. Thanks for this interesting piece of information.

When the Inca Empire c. 1400 became a thing Oxford University had been teaching for around 300 years.

And to think that the fact I was born during the last two years of the Cold War is mind-blowing to some of my employees...

My daughter went to school in Richmond with a direct descendant of John Tyler, whose brother's name was Lyon. There was also a direct descendant of Harrison and Jefferson in her class. It's a Virginia thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Fundman:
I have read about other instances from that time period where really old men had children with women 40-50 years younger. Many Civil War vets had agreements with young woman that she would basically be his live-in nurse and he would impregnate her so that she could collect his veterans pension when he died.

Maudie Hopkins-Died In 2008

Maudie Hopkins (December 7, 1914 – August 17, 2008) was an American woman believed to be the last publicly known and identified surviving widow of a Civil War veteran.